James, Henry - The Golden Bowl (22 CD) - Stevenson, Juliet

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Wealthy Maggie Verver has everything she could ever ask for - except for a husband, and a title. While in Italy, acquiring art for his museum back in the states, Maggie’s millionaire father Adam decides to remedy this and acquire a husband for Maggie. Enter Prince Amerigo, of a titled, but now poor, aristocratic Florentine family. Amerigo is the perfect candidate. Delighted, Maggie then reciprocates by choosing a partner for her widower father: childhood friend Charlotte Stant. The stage is set, and what unfolds is a deep and gripping exploration of fidelity and the politics of love and marriage. Published in 1904, The Golden Bowl displays Henry James at his finest: James weaves scene upon scene, set piece upon set piece, into a seamless whole, through a richly dense tapestry of beautiful, flowing prose. Along with The Ambassadors and The Wings of the Dove, it constitutes James’s final, and most rewarding, phase as a novelist.